“Lynchings were not simply executions. Often the victims were first tortured, sometimes for hours, before they were murdered. Men were castrated and women disemboweled. The form of execution was just as often burning at the stake as it was strangulation; the death throes were long and horrible. Afterwards, the corpses were sometimes ripped apart, and pieces of the victims sold as souvenirs.” That comes from a book called “Buried In The Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America.”

Author Elliott Jaspin went to great lengths to tell readers just what occurred during lynchings. He could have added one other detail: In addition to cutting up the black bodies and handing the parts around as souvenirs, members of lynch mobs took pictures of lynchings and sold them as postcards.

NOTE UPDATE: 1217 PM , The U.S. Senate passed a resolution apologizing for not actively opposing Lynchings and in fact obstructing any legislative action which would make lynching a criminal offense.Note both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted in favor of the resolution.

(1) apologizes to the victims of lynching for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation;(2) expresses the deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets of the Senate to the descendants of victims of lynching, the ancestors of whom were deprived of life, human dignity, and the constitutional protections accorded all citizens of the United States; and(3) remembers the history of lynching, to ensure that these tragedies will be neither forgotten nor repeated

Unfortunately even today there are Americans who think references to Lynching or the hanging of a noose on a tree or in a school locker or in some contractor's office or a bureaucrat's office is seen as " funny ". But a noose symbolizes hate and terror but in America they call such signs of Hate 'Freedom of Expression" like the burning of a cross or having Uniformed Nazis or Klansmen march through a black or Jewish neighborhood as being " freedom of Speech". But shouldn't there be some limits to freedom of speech.Here in Canada we have used a bit of common sense and some sensitivity to others so that certain modes of expression are restricted as is also true in most European Countries. As someone once said yes you should have freedom of speech but not to the extent of shouting " FIRE " in a crowded theatre.

In the American view one can call for the extermination and murder of groups of people and this is seen as somehow enlightened; of course I see this as a form of of irresponsible liberalism . But as I say I am a Canadian and don't find Swastika and Nazis and Klansmen as funny ; rather I see them as homegrown " Terrorists " like the Anti-Abortionists who threaten to kill doctors who perform abortions or who actually do kill doctors who perform abortions - but Americans like Ann Coulter think that someone who kills abortion doctors are , in fact, heroes.

Americans do have strange ideas about what constitutes democracy and freedom . For instance they believe as did 19th century Brits that the poor and the homeless have the right to freeze to death or to starve or to die because they can not afford proper health care .

And at one time up until the 1960's white people in America had the right to Lynch Black People. Note Black People did not have the right to Lynch a white man who killed or raped a black person .

To far too many Americans the Lynching of Black men , women and children was believed to be justified and a matter of getting justice done. These racists believed that Blacks or people of color did not have a right to a trial . The right to a trial was a white privilege in their view.

We should remember that the U.S. Senate didn't apologize to the Black People of America for their continuing to delay legislation making Lynching a crime until 2005.So much for America as " the land of the free and the home of the brave ". What sort of freedom is symbolized by dead black people hanging from trees while " the good Christian white folk " celebrate while having their picnic lunches with their children teaching them to hate anyone who is not white and anyone who dare befriend someone of color.

The U.S. Senate last night approved a resolution apologizing for its failure to enact federal anti-lynching legislation decades ago, marking the first time the body has apologized for the nation's treatment of African Americans.

One-hundred and five years after the first anti-lynching bill was proposed by a black congressman, senators approved by a voice vote Resolution 39, which called for the lawmakers to apologize to lynching victims, survivors and their descendants, several of whom watched from the gallery.

In passing the measure, the senators in essence admitted that their predecessors' failure to act had helped perpetuate a horror that took the lives of more than 4,700 people from 1882 to 1968, most of them black men. At the turn of the last century, more than 100 lynching incidents were reported each year, many of them publicly orchestrated to humiliate the victims and instill fear in others. Lynching occurred in all but four states in the contiguous United States, and less than 1 percent of the perpetrators were brought to justice, historians say.

The U.S. House of Representatives three times passed measures to make lynching a federal offense, but each time the bills were knocked down in the Senate. Powerful southern senators, such as Richard B. Russell Jr. (D-Ga.), whose name was given to the Senate office building where the resolution was drafted, used the filibuster to block votes.

Excerpts from the Congressional Record show some senators argued that such laws would interfere with states' rights. Others, however, delivered impassioned speeches about how lynching helped control what they characterized as a threat to white women and also served to keep the races separate, according to records provided by the Committee for a Formal Apology, a group that has lobbied the Senate.

"Whenever a Negro crosses this dead line between the white and the Negro races and lays his black hand on a white woman, he deserves to die," segregationist Sen. James Thomas Heflin (D-Ala.) said in 1930.

In a 1938 debate, Russell repeatedly referred to a hypothetical lynching victim with a derogatory derivative of the word "Negro."

and while the Senate made it's lame belated apology once again there was no effort made to expand on Hate Law Legislation !!!

LOS ANGELES--If they were still alive, NAACP executive directors James Weldon Johnson, Walter White and Roy Wilkins would smile at the Senate's plan to apologize for lynching with a non-binding resolution next week. But their smiles would be faint because Congress still refuses to pass an expanded hate crimes law.

The late civil rights leaders fought a tireless, frustrating battle for a half century to get eight presidents and Congress to pass an anti-lynching law. The White House and the lawmakers ducked, dodged and stonewalled efforts to get the law passed.

That was the government's shame. Lynching was the dirtiest of dirty stains on American democracy. Between 1890 and 1968 there were nearly 5,000 known lynchings. The carnage was probably much higher as many killings weren't reported. The majority of the victims were black. The coming Senate resolution offers "solemn regrets" to their descendants. At least it would make it official that the feds fumbled the ball badly when it came to protecting blacks. The Senate resolution, however, doesn't answer why eight presidents and Congress did nothing to stop lynching. It also doesn't tell why Congress still refuses to go all out to nail hate-mongers today.

The foot-dragging presidents and Congress rebuffed the NAACP with excuse after lame excuse. Some officials claimed that if they pressed too hard the Southerners who dominated Congress would filibuster anti-lynching bills to death, paralyze the government and bottle up other more "important" legislation. Others claimed it was up to the states to prosecute the killers and there was nothing the federal government could or should do. Still others were mute on the issue and hoped it would go away. They were all disingenuous and hypocritical.

SPRINGFIELD — Local black leaders are saddened and disappointed by Golfweek magazine's decision to put a noose on its cover this week in the wake of a Golf Channel anchor's "lynch" comment about golfer Tiger Woods.

Those attending Friday's Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration in Springfield said the magazine should know better.

"Some people don't understand that words like lynching and a noose, attached to race, represent years of oppression of black people," said John Young, interim dean of students at Wittenberg University. "Literally thousands of our people have been lynched or hanged without any due process or for no reason at all.

Lynchings and nooses represent "fear" and "intimidation" of black people, Young said.

"To me that is like putting the Confederate flag on the front of the magazine," Young said.

AH, THE POWER OF THE press. Sometimes a little magazine can stir controversy and publicity with great investigative reporting or an incisive, well-argued opinion column. But you can also do it by just being really, really stupid.

The controversy surrounding Golf Channel commentator Kelly Tilghman's on-air remark of Jan. 4--when she jokingly suggested that junior players might have to "lynch" Tiger Woods to have a chance of winning --was fair warning that lynching is not a comedy gold mine in public discourse. It's more like a third rail.

I don’t celebrate “Be Kind to Stupid Black People Week.” I apply the same standard to Caucasians.

Kelly Tilghman, an on-air commentator for the Golf Channel, might well qualify for my Stupid White Person of the Decade at the end of 2010. Can you believe this dimwit said as a joke that Tiger Woods' golf competitors might want to lynch him in a back alley as a way of getting an edge?

Oh, she’s apologized up the wazoo for the remark. And the Golf Channel has suspended her for two weeks (I’ve heard the suspension is with pay; if that’s true, then it’s not a suspension. It’s what you and I call a vacation.).

According to the Archives at Tuskegee Institute, 4,743 people were lynched in America during the years 1882-1968. Black victims accounted for 3,446 of the lynchings, and 1,297 whites were lynched. The racial group that made up only 11 percent of the population accounted for 73 percent of the lynchings.

That doesn’t just make lynchings lynchings; they bordered on genocide.

For all the talk about how Tilghman’s use of the word "lynch" was inadvertent and how she meant no offense, Tilghman and her defenders know one thing: If she had been talking about a Jewish golfer, she would never have said “inadvertently” or with no offense that his competitors should get together and gas him in an oven.

The word is that Tilghman has a history degree from Duke University. So she’s heard of the Holocaust. She knows that kind of comment about a Jewish golfer would have been out of bounds. And even if she were stupid enough to say it, those rushing to her defense with all this talk of “inadvertent” and “inoffensive” language wouldn’t be uttering such nonsense.

But some Americans feel it’s perfectly okay to know about the Holocaust and be totally ignorant about the true history of lynching in this country, especially as it relates to black people. You can bet Tilghman hasn’t read Jaspin’s book and that it’s not even on her “to buy” list. It’s a safe bet Mr. Cablinasian hasn’t read it either.

Sadly, it seems the few conversations we have about race and sports anymore are limited to extreme reactions to language. They're not so much conversations as they are confrontations, usually angry ones and increasingly with severe consequences. Our parents never told us that words could hurt just as much as sticks and stones.

Already a broadcaster has been suspended, a magazine editor fired, and feelings deeply bruised from the inappropriate use of one of America's ugliest images: lynching. And we certainly haven't heard the last of the Kelly Tilghman-Tiger Woods-Golfweek Magazine controversy because Woods opens his 2008 season this week, which might be remembered more for what he says about all this than how he plays.

Sen. Barack Obama even weighed in from the presidential campaign trail in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning when he said Golfweek Magazine's use of a noose on its cover showed "a lack of sensitivity to some of the profound historical and racial issues. . . . We have to understand there's nothing funny about a noose. There's a profound history that people have been dealing with, and those memories are ones that can't be played with."